Month: September 2017

Just Desserts Discussion Group talks aboutThe Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

This month’s fiction book is The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Kristin Hannah is the New York Times bestselling author of TheNightingale, Night Road, Firefly Lane, True Colors and Winter Garden. She is a former lawyer, who started writing while pregnant and on bed rest with her son. Writing soon became her obsession and she’s been writing fiction ever since.

Our choice for this month is an epic love story/family drama set in France at the beginning and duration of World War II. Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads to war to defend France. Vianne and their daughter, Sophie, don’t believe that the Nazis will invade their small town of Carriveau. But they do invade and live side by side with the French citizens. Vianne is forced to make choices to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s rebellious sister, Isabelle, is searching for a purpose in life. She joins the Resistance with a young man named Gaetan. They never look back, while risking their lives to save others. Isabelle is young, beautiful, and brave.

Their father, Julien, sends Isabelle to the country to help Vianne and Sophie survive the war. Their relationship is tested, but so is their strength and their abilities to tell right from wrong. The French people are being forced to accept a life filled with starvation, cold, and horrible treatment of their friends and neighbors, who are Jews.

Our story is told with courage, grace, and insight. We all hope that this is not Kristin Hannah’s last historical fiction novel. The group agreed that her writing is very visual. The novel would translate into a memorable film. In fact, several members thought that this was one of the best novels that they had ever read. I agree!

Pick up The Nightingale for yourself! You will find yourself getting lost in Vianne’s and Isabelle’s stories. It illuminates a part of history rarely seen: the women’s war in World War II France.

September 21st was Book Lover’s Day 2017! This is our annual program to share books that we as a department have loved over the past year, give away raffles of popular books, and have a pleasant luncheon while enjoying fiction.

We had a full house this year; every seat was filled!

If you were unable to join us, or want a refresher on what books were spoken about, below you will find the slide show from Book Lover’s Day 2017 as well as an alphabetical book list by author of the titles presented. Click on any of the titles in the book list to see them in our catalog.

Discover the many ways you can benefit from the Rolling Meadows Library collection with our Let’s Plan a Weekend displays at the Welcome Desk!

We are having small, themed raffles in conjunction with these displays that patrons can enter to win! Each display also includes bookmarks to take home on how to create your own unique, themed experiences with library materials, which are also on display. Raffle winners do need to have a Rolling Meadows library card, but everyone can check out the materials or take home a bookmark!

The display which has just ended was “Let’s Plan to Rock Out this Weekend!” It had a pack of books, movies, music, and even a pair of headphones to win!
Our winner for this prize pack was Betty A., out of a total out 67 entries!

Our current display is “Let’s Plan a Fall into Autumn Weekend!” It has a pack of books and music to help make the progression of the seasons an experience to be savored.

Questions? Call the library @ 847.259.6050 or stop by the Welcome Desk!